1. Field Of The Invention
The invention herein pertains to ballast devices to increase the traction of vehicles and in particular pertains to a flexible receptacle which can be filled with water to load the rear wheels of a vehicle, such as a pick-up truck, for traveling over slick, wintery roads.
2. Description Of The Prior Art And Objectives Of The Invention
Vehicle owners, and in particular owners of pick-up trucks have long experienced the need of a simple, efficient way to add weight to the rear wheels of the vehicle when traveling over slick or icy roads. Sandbags, firewood and other articles have been placed in the beds of pick-up trucks and vans to increase the load on the rear wheels for increased traction and steering performance while navigating icy streets and roads.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,971 provides boxes along the sides of the vehicle bed for containment of tools and fluids to increase the load for better traction. Another type of vehicle ballast is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,494,315, in which apparatus is mounted along each side of a truck bed, over the rear wheels for containing sand or other heavy substances. U.S. Pat. No. 4,190,281 also provides a ballast device for pick-up trucks which includes side-mounted containers for carrying sand.
While all such prior art devices are beneficial to some degree various disadvantages persist, such as convenience in use, costs and installation considerations. Thus, with these and other problems and liabilities of prior art devices, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a ballast receptacle for a vehicle which can be easily mounted or removed from the vehicle without tools or equipment.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a ballast receptacle which is formed from a relatively lightweight flexible plastic material for containing ballast such as water to load the rear wheels of the vehicle and which will collapse when empty for convenient storage.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a ballast receptacle which can be easily filled while on the vehicle with water or drained without the necessity of removing the ballast receptacle from the vehicle.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide a ballast receptacle which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture and purchase and which is light in weight when empty.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is set forth below.